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Student Arrested for Writing Essay
mcgrew writes "The Chicago Tribune reports that an eighteen year old straight-A High School student was arrested for writing an essay that 'disturbed' his teacher. Even though no threats were made to a specific person, 18 year-old Allen Lee's English teacher convened a panel to discuss the work. As a result of that discussion, the police were called in. 'The youth's father said his son was not suspended or expelled but was forced to attend classes elsewhere for now. Today, Cary-Grove students rallied behind the arrested teen by organizing a petition drive to let him back in their school. They posted on walls quotes from the English teacher in which she had encouraged students to express their emotions through writing.'"
On the off chance the kid is a nut job I guess you need to check him out. I'm not sure you need to arrest him....
This
FTA:
Disorderly conduct, which carries a penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine, is filed for pranks such as pulling a fire alarm or dialing 911. But it can also apply when someone's writings can disturb an individual, Delelio said
If this is true, then the disorderly conduct statute should be declared unconstitutional. If writing something that could disturb any random individual (without directly threatening that individual) is an arrestable offense, then the very idea of free speech is pretty much out the window. After all, if the First Amendment isn't there to protect possibly disturbing speech, what is it there for?
The story points to them being a "straight A student". What does this have to do with anything? Are they implying that a persons GPA is an indicator of their abilities to shoot others at school?
Just what was the point of that?
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
According to a Chicago Tribune Article today, the assignment directions were to write stream of consciousness and to not judge or filter your writing.
Seems to me this was a smart kid playing games with a stupid touchy feely assignment for a blow-off class his senior year.
Should the kid have been referred to a counselor? Sure.
Should the kids parents been contacted? Absolutely.
Arrested because his thoughts are disturbing? No.
Truth: If it's not one thing, it's another
My friend had a similar situation happen to him after the Columbine High School shooting. He made up a death-list and talked about it to friends and other students in school PRIOR to Columbine. After Columbine, he was picked up by the school administrators and police and spent several days in consoling until they decided that he wasn't serious.
Because of what he wrote? If we start locking up and examining every person for what they write, we will be in a sad society. I have written some pretty "disturbing" things in my life, but I have never had anyone question my sanity. Some of my pieces have even been published, where not just a few school administrators saw them, but at a minimum tens of thousands of people read them.
I distinctly remember a poem I wrote, where I described in first person the sensation and thoughts of a person committing suicide by jumping. Even my own mother looked at me like I was nuts, and we all joked about how someone might say something, but nothing came of it. People never questioned my motivation or the writing. You know there is this quote attributed to Sigmund Freud, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
I hope the criminal charges against him get dismissed and that he returns to school to complete his senior year. It seems pretty obvious to me that there is a great potential that the decision they made was both racial and reactionary. Neither of which are right.
The US as far as I know has never been a free country. Certainly it hasn't in the last 70 years.
Why can the government tell me who or how many people I can marry?
Why can the government tell me what plants I can grow?
Why can the government tell me what substances I can own?
Why can the government tell me how (or if) I should dress?
Why can the government tell two consenting adults what they can do together, or whether they can charge one another for it?
Why can the government tell me what countries I can visit?
I don't know of anywhere that I would really call free, and I am thankful for the freedoms I have. I am also watchful of the freedoms that are guaranteed to me but seem to be slipping. But I would love to see someplace that was really free.
Another 'offtopic' moderation coming my way, I'm sure...
Ah, but you're missing the point of censorship - you see, once something has been censored, nobody can see it. If we could see it, we'd have to use our own common sense and judgment to determine if it was actually harmful or not. That's not only hard work, it might even lead to the wrong conclusions - you may end up disagreeing with the Powerful Ones as to whether or not it needed to be censored. Plus, children might see it! As anybody who's never spent any actual time with an actual child knows, children have minds more fragile than Tiffany glass which can be irreparably, irreversibly destroyed by the slightest immoral thought at any time.
Rational subjective judgment and censorship can't coexist; we have to throw one out. Clearly, censorship is the lesser of the two evils.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
Writing something disturbing is enough to cost you your right to own a gun? Wow...I sure hope Stephen King and Quentin Tarantino aren't avid hunters.
Unpleasantries.
>Also, doesn't the US have a constitution which makes freedom of expression an absolute right?
>>Yes, but that does not exempt you from the consequences of exercising that right.
That's ridiculous! It's obviously not a "Right" if the government can throw you in prison for exercising it!
That being said, this kid sounds like a fuckin nut job.
Excellent knee-jerk reaction for someone having absolutely no context for the writing.
If you made judgement on the writing alone, all of 4chan would be in jail. Look, the kid could have written it specifically to see how the teacher would react, he could have written it to explore things that disturb him in a manner that is safe, he could have been writing it as a joke, or perhaps he wrote it specifically to be disturbing and to invoke that feeling in the reader. Isn't part of art (whether it's writing, painting, sculpture, whatever) to invoke emotion in the reader/viewer?
Your kind of reaction, done with very limited information on the situation, is a perfect example of what's wrong in the world. This need for immediate gratification, in this case by passing judgement so you can now move on to the next topic and not bother with this again.
It's just silly.
They're only "straw men" in your mind, and because you don't like them. Had you bothered to look closely, you'd realize that his points are quite valid, albeit intentionally absurd. But they most certainly relate to your points, which are also valid, and only slightly less absurd.
Freedom as you describe it cannot exist in concert with civilization as we know it. That is not because of your points, but because of the ease with which the freedoms you pontificate about are extended to their extreme.
And please do not even attempt to say it wouldn't happen.
Sounds like a nut job? To me, he sounds like a teen following the directions of the assignment and trying to determine where the limits lie. While not as well executed, Lee's essay has elements that are similar to sections of T.S. Elliot's The Wasteland, the drug advocacy of Alan Ginsberg, the poetry of Sylvia Plath. Literature is filled with dead people we now refer to as artists and legends who became thus because they explored the dark edges of humanity. Oedipus Rex is all about incest and patricide, the works of Shakespeare are filled with violence, sex, and death. So, take this background, a bright student, and an assignment that instructs the students not to censor themselves, and just what did you expect to come out? No poets get recognized for writing about happy puppies and cute kittens.
Add to that, the only text from the essay I've seen has been excerpted out of context. If I just give you this text "And ate the fellow, raw.", what would you think the poem was about? Perhaps a bit from Silence of the Lambs? A quote from Penthouse Letters? A story about eating octopus? Nope. That's from Emily Dickinson's "In the garden". Context is key to meaning.
Should the teacher have done something? Probably. Should someone have talked with Lee to find out if he really had violent tendencies? Sure. Should they have charged the kid with a crime for following, perhaps to the logical extreme, the explicit instructions on the assignment? Definitely not.
It. Have "it" removed. Remember, you need to dehumanize the enemy to make it easier for the panicy masses destroy them.
This is hilarious!!!! So he got arrested over this? Come on now... When I was a kid I wrote a pretty dark piece in my English class and was praised for my use of metaphor and vivid imagery. They didn't call the cops on me or send me to see the school shrink for a heart to heart. They took my piece for what it was. This essay was just him venting. If they think this is bad they'd most likely die of fright if they were able to read the REAL thoughts of the students. For the most part I feel this kids essay was a critique of his school and society. Nothing here should be raising any red flags. The stuff he put to paper is the same stuff kids say when they talk to each other. This poor kid has learned that when someone asks him to be open it really means "only say nice things." How pathetic.
Outside of the "13 year old" and the "smuggled out" part, I don't really have a problem with any of the above, actually. What's wrong with having a dozen partners? What's wrong with rolling joints? What's wrong with shooting heroin (in a criminal sense, not as a medical condition that should be treated)? What's wrong with being in a nude? What's wrong with transvestites? What's wrong with prostitution, as long as it's voluntarily and nobody's forced to do anything they don't want to do (if people *are*, that's bad, of course, but in that case, it's bad no matter whether what they're forced to do is prostitute themselves or something else). And finally, what's wrong with people from Somalia?
As long as everyone involved is an adult and as long as everything's done with the informed consent of everyone involved, I frankly don't see why you should have a right to dictate what others can or can't do. I assume, based on your nickname, that you enjoy coffee. I'm also going to guess (without any basis) that you're heterosexual and not celibate (or that you wouldn't be if you had a girlfriend in case you don't have one). How would you feel if I came along and told you that in "my society", doing depraved things like drinking coffee and having missionary-style sex with your girlfriend are (or, at the very least, should be) illegal? Wouldn't you feel that this is an intrusion into your private matters - that as long as your girlfriend wants to have sex with you, there's no reason why the two of you shouldn't, and that whether you drink coffee or not is noone's business but your own?
Maybe you think that that's not the same, but if you do, you couldn't be more wrong. Freedom is always the freedom of others.
butter the donkey
Who cares about law enforcement? The question is whether he's broken any laws and, the last I heard, writing something disturbing isn't illegal. This is just a bunch of panicky idiots overreacting like they always do. God help us, the morons are running the place.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"